Amid the Stars and Darkness
by The Silent Crescendo
Summary: The fate of humanity is at stake when two races of robots, the Autobots and the Decepticons, bring their war to Earth. Both sides seek the key to ultimate power: an ancient Cybertronian artifact known as the Allspark. Simultaneously, Carina Lainez is still recovering from the trauma of losing her family. She soon finds out that she is the only one who can help win the war.
1. Author's Note

Hello All,

This story, and most of my other works, will now primarily occur on Wattpad now. I will post and update stories here on FanFiction, but they will not be as constant as my Wattpad updates.

You can find me on Wattpad under the same pen name.


	2. Chapter One

**"We do not ask for what useful purpose the birds do sing, for song is their pleasure since they were created for singing. Similarly we ought not to ask why the human mind troubles to fathom the secrets of the heavens..."**  
 **-Johannes Kepler**  
 *****  
 ******  
 *****

"Okay, Mr. Witwicky, you're up!"

Carina watched as her cousin Sam took his backpack up to the front of the room. He moved behind a desk and opened his backpack, dumping it's contents onto the desk.

"Sorry, I've got a lot of stuff."

Carina winced when she saw their grandfather's glasses, the ones she loaned him for the project, came tumbling out. She was never going to let him borrow anything ever again.

"For my family geno-"

Sam was abruptly cut off when Trent DeMarco shot a rubberband at him, hitting him in the neck.

Carina shoved Trent's chair with her foot just as their history teacher, Mr. Hosney stood from his desk. "Who did-Who did that?" He was met with the laughter of the class. "People...responsibility."

Trent turned around when Mr. Hosney sat back down at his desk. "Can I help you with something, Lainez?"

Carina rolled her eyes. "You could do a better job at acting like an actual thinking, feeling human being."

Trent narrowed his eyes at Carina before taking his girlfriend, Mikaela's hand and facing the front of the classroom once again. Carina resisted the urge to crumple up a piece of paper and launch it at the back of his head.

Sam moved behind the podium at the front of the room. "Um, so for my family genealogy report, I decided to do it on my great great grandfather, who was a famous man, Captain Archibald Witwicky. He was a very famous explorer, in fact-"

Sam shuffled with the things on the desk in front of him until he found what he was looking for.

"He was one of the first to explore the Arctic Circle. Which is a big deal." He finished as he opened the old piece of paper he had pulled off the desk. It was an old, hand drawn map of the Arctic Circle. Carina knew that the map had belonged to their great great grandfather and had been passed down, like all the other things on the table, some of it to Sam and some of it to Carina.

"In 1897, he took 41 brave sailors into the Arctic Shelf...So that's the story right?" Sam set the map down and pointed to the table where he had emptied his backpack. "And here we have some of the basic instruments and tools used 19th century seamen."

The last word emitted a giggle from the rest of the people in their class, making Carina shake her head and sigh in annoyance. Was she in a classroom filled with five year olds?

"This here is the quadrant, which you can get for eighty bucks. It's all for sale by the way." He shuffled around with the things. "Like the sextant, here. "

Another round of giggling made Mr. Hosney lifted up his quiet sign which was shaped like a stop sign.

"Fifty bucks for this, which is a bargain."

He set down the sextant and picked up the glasses. "These are pretty cool. These are my grandfather's glasses. I haven't quite gotten them appraised yet, but they've seen many cool things."

Carina sat up in her seat when Sam mentioned the appraising. He had asked his parents if he was allowed to sell some of their great great grandfather's belongings to raise money to get his first car, but he had never asked her if he could sell the glasses, most likely because he knew her answer would have been no.

"Are you going to sell me his liver?" Mr. Hosney asked dryly. "Mr. Witwicky, this isn't show and tell, this is the eleventh grade. I don't think your grandfather would be particularly proud of what you're doing-"

"I know, I'm sorry." Sam cut him off. "This is all going toward my car fund. You can tell your folks, it's on ebay. I take , cold hard cash works too. The compass make a-a great gift from Columbus Day."

Mr. Hosney rolled his eyes and buried his head in his hands. "Sam!"

"Sorry." Sam quickly straighten back up. "Um, unfortunately, my great great grandfather, the genius that he was-" Sam lifted up several yellowed pieces of paper with strange symbols on them. "Wound up going blind and crazy in a psycho ward, drawing these strange symbols and babbling on about some giant iceman that he thought he discovered. "

The bell rang, cutting Sam off and announcing that the school say was finally over.

Carina shoved her notebooks in her backpack as Mr. Hosney stood up. "Okay, might be a pop quiz tomorrow, might not be. Sleep in fear tonight."

Carina was halfway to the door when she heard Sam trying to convince some of their classmates to buy some of their grandfather's belongings. She would have marched up to him and taken the glasses and journal that belonged to her, but she knew that no one would buy them from Sam. The market for old seamen instruments from a crazy captain wasn't in sixteen or seventeen years olds.

Carina moved to her locker and stashed her history textbook inside before closed it. She walked to the door as she turned her cellphone back on. Once the Apple logo faded away, her phone buzzed several times, alerting her to several new text messages.

All of them were from her best friend Graham Roberts.

Most of them were of him asking is she was up for doing something over the weekend. She locked her phone, reminding herself to reply to him later. As she walked out of the school building, she saw her uncle parked in his trademark green car.

"Hey uncle Ron." She smiled as she climbed over the car door and settled in the back seat.

"How was your day?" Ron asked, looking in his review mirror so her could see Carina.

Carina slipped her backpack off and set it down to her left. "It was good. Just a normal Friday."

"Nothing interesting to report?"

Carina shook her head. "Nope."

Carina watched as kids flooded out of the school, all of them excited for their weekend plans. it wasn't long before Carina saw Sam racing toward the car.

"Yes!"

Carina didn't have enough time to prepare herself to catch Sam's backpack before he threw it at her.

"Hey, watch it!"

"Sorry." Sam opened the door and climbed in the car next to his dad.

"So?" Ron asked, looking at his son.

"A minus, but it's an A though." Sam said as he slammed the door shut and waved the paper in his dad's face.

"W-Wait I can't see."

Ron took the paper and read it. "It's an A."

Carina reached forward and grabbed the paper.

"So I'm good?" Sam asked hopefully.

"Yeah, you're good."

Carina read over the rubric from the assignment and was shocked to read that Sam had in fact gotten an A. She folded the paper and shoved it into Sam's backpack. While she put the paper in his backpack, she shifted through it until she found her grandfather's journal and glasses. She transferred them to her own backpack.

"So are we going today or are we waiting until the weekend?" She asked as Ron started driving.

"We better be going today." Sam looked to his dad. "We are going today, right?"

Ron chuckled. "Carina can go whenever she wants, she's got the money to pay for her own."

"Dad!"

"Calm down, Samuel." Ron looked to his son fr a brief moment before looking back to the road. "I've got a special surprise for you."

Carina pulled her grandfather's journal from her backpack and began flipping through it. She has flipped through it about a million times before when she was growing up. She traced the strange symbols with her finger, just like she had done as a child.

She wondered what they meant, and why they had been so important to her grandfather that he wrote them in heavy, thick black ink in the margins of his journal. It was true that he had went crazy, causing him to be committed. It was because of him that the concern for mental illness became prominent in their family, but no Witwicky since him had shown any symptoms of mental illness.

But something had happened during her grandfather's journey that caused him to suffer a mental break. But no one knew what that was. People don't just suffer from metal breaks, there's always a catalyst, something that drastically changes which there person can't handle.

Carina knew whatever happened must have been earth shattering because her grandfather was a genius of his generation. He was literally one to go down in the history books, as a great man and as someone who lost his sanity for his craft.

The movement of the car turning made Carina look up from the journal. She noticed that her uncle was pulling into the parking lot of a Porsche dealership. Confused, Carina put the journal back into her backpack and zipped it shut as she sat up in the seat.

"No." Sam looked around in disbelief at the car lot. "No. No. No. No. No!" Sam was on the edge of his seat. "Dad! Oh you gotta be kidding me."

"Yeah I am." Ron smiled. "You're not getting a Porsche." He started laughing as he pulled out of the Porsche dealership and turned down a side road.

Carina couldn't help but let out a short laugh, which was quickly silenced by Sam as he whirled around in his seat and narrowed his eyes at her.

"Sorry." She muttered, breaking eye contact as she tried to keep from laughing more.

"You think that's funny?" Sam looked at his dad.

"Yeah I think that's funny."

"What's wrong with you?"

"You really thought I was getting you a Porsche? For your first car?" Ron asked as he pulled into the used car dealership that was half a block away from the Porsche dealership.

"I don't want to talk to your for the rest of the day."

"What? It was a practical joke!"

"It wasn't a funny joke."

Carina couldn't help but laugh as Ron pulled into a vacant spot at the car dealership. Sam once again gave her a dirty look, but it only made her laugh harder.

Ron turned the car off and climbed out. Sam let out a huff as he opened the car door, Carina composed herself before following Sam and closing the car door behind her.

"Here?" Sam asked when he looked around the lot. "You said half a car, not half a piece of crap, dad!"

"When I was your age, I would have been happy with four wheels and an engine." Ron replied.

"Didn't you and my dad rebuild your first car, uncle Ron?" Carina asked as Sam looked a few cars they passed.

"We sure did." Ron smiled as he thought back. "It was good bonding time for us." Ron looked at the two teenagers. "Maybe I should make you two split on a junker and make you rebuild it."

"I would love to rebuild a car from scratch, but the only thing Sam knows about cars is how to turn one on."

Sam caught up with them, interrupting his father's response to Carina. "Let me explain something to you, okay? Have you ever seen 40 year old virgin?"

Ron nodded. "Yeah."

"That's what this is." Sam said gesturing to an old car to their left. He turned to their right. "And this is 50 year old virgin." He turned back to his dad. "You want me to live that life?"

"No sacrifice-"

"Yeah, no victory." Sam finished. "I got it dad, the old Witwicky motto."

"Gentleman, lady." A man approached the three right as Ron and Sam were finishing their discussion. "Bobby Bolivia." He shook Ron's hand. "Like the country, except without the runs." he let out a short laugh. "How can I help you?"

"Well my son and niece here are looking to buy their first cars." Ron said proudly, wrapping an arm around Sam.

"And you've come to see me?" Bobby Bolivia pointed to himself.

"Had to." Sam said dryly, earning a scolding look from Ron.

"That practically makes us family." Bobby Bolivia smiled as he offered his hand to Sam. "Uncle Bobby B, baby. Uncle Bobby B!"

"Sam."

Sam shook Bobby B's hand before the salesman turned to Carina.

"Carina." She smiled as she shook his hand.

"Well come on then." Bobby B led the three out into the lot. "Sam, Carina, your first enchilada of freedom awaits under one of those hoods. Let me tell you something kids, the driver don't pick the car, the car picks the driver. It's a mystical bond between man-or woman- and machine."

Carina couldn't see Sam's facial expression from where she was standing, but he must have been giving Bobby B a unmoved look.

"Son, I'm a lotta of things, but a liars not one of them."

"Mm."

"Especially not in front of my mammy." He pointed to a house across a side road. "That's my mammy. Hey mammy!"

When Bobby B yelled and waved for his mother, he was met with her flipping him off.

"Ohh, don't be like that! If I had a rock, I would bust yo' head, bitch."

The statement made Carina tilted her head in confusion.

Bobby B turned back to the trio. "She deaf, you know?" He laughed uncomfortably.

"Right, well." Carina looked to a row of cars. "I'm going to go look over here." She pointed as she moved.

"And I'm going this way." Sam pointed in the opposite direction.

Carina had been hoping that Bobby B would have followed after Sam, so she could get away from the strange vibe she was getting from him, but she sighed when she saw he was following her. Luckily, Ron seemed to be trailing close behind him.

Carina walked up and down the first few aisles of cars she came across. She looked at each car she passed until she saw one on the on the end of the row near the street they turned off of to get to the dealership.

She hadn't seen it when they pulled up.

It was one that she was sure she recognized. The faded turquoise paint job was a little hard to see, and the car's whole body was covered in mud and dirt, but she knew that it was.

"Is this what I think it is?" She questioned as closed the distance between her and the car.

"A Thunderbird?" Bobby B questioned to himself as he followed her. "I think I would remember having a Thunderbird." He turned over his shoulder. "Manny!"

"What?" A mechanic from the shop poked his head around one of the cars he was working on.

"What is this? Where did this car come from?"

"I don't know, boss! I've never seen it! That's loco!" Manny yelled back, clearly eager to get back to what he was doing.

"Don't go Ricky Ricardo on me, Manny! Find out!"

Carina ran her hand along the hood, her fingers picking up the dirt as she walked around it, revealing the bright turquoise color underneath. She opened the driver's door and sat in the front seat.

Even though the car was old, it looked like it had been kept in excellent shape. All it really needed was a wash and a good waxing. That being said, what was it doing in a car lot like this? It was a collector's item, one of those big ticket cars that you could count on seeing at a antique car show. Carina silently wondered if Bobby B knew what kind of money he could get for a Thunderbird of any year.

"How much for it?"

Bobby B took a walk around the car, looking at it before he circled back around to Carina."Five thousand."

Carina's shoulders slumped in defeat. "I can't go anything over four."

"I've got it covered." Ron said quickly, cutting off Bobby B from saying anything.

Carina looked at her uncle. "But you told Sam no more than four."

Ron shrugged. "You got straight A's and you were ready to pay for yours completely." He paused. "And your dad had an '85 for his first car."

Carina gave her uncle a confused look. "He did? That was the one you and him rebuilt?"

Ron nodded. "I guess good taste runs in the family."

"I'll get y'all the paperwork going." Bobby B said as he walked away.

"Are you sure, uncle Ron?" Carina said as she got out of the car. "I'm sure I can find something else."

"You're a good kid." Ron said as he wrapped an arm around Carina's shoulders. "You've been through hell the last few years and it's good to finally see you come out of you shell a little bit. And besides...it's like fate or something that you chose this one."

Carina laughed. "Remember, Bobby B says the car chooses the driver." She teased.

"Ah, right. How could I forget the wise words of uncle Bobby B?"

The sound of a car door opening made the two look up to see Sam climbing into a car parked near the front.

"I better go see what your cousin is doing."

Carina nodded. "Probably, before he breaks something."

She watched as he uncle moved across the lot to where Sam was getting into a yellow car with black racing stripes.

Carina sat back in the driver's seat and ran her hand over the steering wheel.

Her father's first car had been a Thunderbird?

With such a classic car, she thought that he would have mentioned it as least once or twice.

She ran her hand over the dashboard, picking up particles of dust with her hand. It was clear to her that the car was going to need a deep clean to get rid of the dust, but she knew she could get the car cleaned and waxed in a weekend, and luckily for her, she had no plans.

Carina wiped the dust on her jeans as she reached up for the sun vizor. As she pulled it down. A set of keys fell into her lap.

Carina picked up the keys and turned them over in her hand. It was a simple set of car keys attached to a Thunderbird leather key fob. She traced her thumb over the Thunderbird symbol.

"Fate or something, huh?"

As she mulled over her uncle's words, she climbed out of the Thunderbird and closed the door behind her. Just noticed Sam climbing out of the car he had been sitting in. When he closed the driver door, the passenger door flung open and slammed into Bobby B's leg. He rubbed his leg as he closed the door. She could see that he was saying something to Manny, but couldn't hear exactly what he said.

Just as Carina was about to walk over to see what was, a loud, high pitched sound made Carina cover her ears with her hands. As the sound got louder and more high pitched, Carina leaned over, trying to block the sound. She let out a loud gasp when the windows of the cars next to her blew out, spraying shatter glass all over her.

As quickly as the noise began, it ended.

Carina straightened, brushing the glass shard from her hair. A quick survey around the lot made Carina realize that the windows of all the cars in the lot had been shatter...except her Thunderbird and the striped car that Sam had been looking at.

Bobby B turned whirled back around to Sam and Ron. "Four thousand!" He yelled, holding up four fingers.


	3. Chapter Two

**"Our uniqueness makes us special, makes our perception valuable- but it can also make us lonely. This loneliness is different from being 'alone'. You can be lonely even surrounded by people. The feeling I'm talking about stems from the sense that we can never fully share the truth of who we are."**  
 **-Amy Tan**

 ****  
***

It was early afternoon when Carina woke up.

Everyone else in the house had already been awake for hours, but Carina knew that they had elected to let her sleep.

Carina spent the beginning of her day with Sam as the two clean their cars.

Carina also taught Sam how to check the fluids of his car and tried to make him understand that it was important to get his car's oil changed, but she was almost 100% sure that he simply nodded and ignored her.

Sam spent nearly the entire time they were working talking about a party that was happening at a local park that he was going to with his best friend Miles Lancaster.

Carina has a sneaking suspicion that the real reason Sam was going to the party was to try to get some face time with Mikaela.

Sam had been crushing on the girl for as long as she's lived with him.

Carina had never really been one to date. She's only ever had two boyfriends in her life and they were never what she considered serious.

After losing her family, the idea of dating seemed...stupid.

Things like dating: prom, formals, parties, football games, clubs and other various mundane teenage rites of passage had little meaning to Carina. It seemed pointless to waste her times on things that didn't really mean a lot to her. They didn't mean much when her family was life, they meant even less now after losing them.

But Carina didn't want her depressing attitude to get in the way of Sam's high school experience, so she did her best to listen to him as he chattered on about the party.

It was later in the afternoon when Carina went back in the house and started her homework. She had to finish her genealogy report before she had to present it on Monday. She was nearly done with it, all she needed to do was spellcheck her powerpoints and upload some pictures she had to go digging around through her mother's things to find.

She dreaded every time she had to go to the attic to look through her parents things, it was like rubbing salt in a cut that was still trying to heal. It was painful, which is why she usually avoided the attic, but she felt like the report wouldn't have been completely without pictures.

It was when her aunt and uncle went outside to work on the backyard that Carina decided to sit on the patio and work on her geometry homework. She thought it would be less painful to do if she was sitting outside in the warm evening air with her aunt and uncle.

She must have looked frustrated, because it wasn't long after she sat down that her aunt Judy called out to her.

"Carina, sweetie, take a break. Put on a pair of gloves and help me out."

Carina looked down at her geometry homework and concluded that any excuse to get away from it was a good excuse. She stuck her pencil in her textbook and closed it. She unfurled her legs from the blanket and stepped off of the patio.

"What do you need help with?"

Judy handed her a pair and light blue gardening gloves. "You can take that pallet of pansies and plant them in that flowerbed over there."

Carina picked up the pallet of the light purple colored flowers and moved over to the side of the yard where her uncle was working on his fountain in the center of the yard.

She set the pallet down next to her as she slipped her gloves on.

Gardening had always been cathartic for Carina. It wasn't long after taking up the hobby that she realized that the scientific studies that stated nature had healing properties had some truths to them.

Everything seemed to melt away when Carina planted.

Stress.

Anger.

Anxiety.

Sadness.

Grief.

There was something about helping new life grow and thrive that made Carina forget how much her life had ceased to thrive.

Carina also thought that he love for gardening and all things nature came from her mother's fondness over the hobby. One of Carina's earliest childhood memories was of her mother planting a rose bush right outside her window. In the spring, the sent of roses wafted into her bedroom, giving everything a sweet smell.

"Ron, this one is uneven."

Carina turned around to see her aunt use her foot to move one of the pathway tiles.

"Yeah. Probably." Ron responded, not paying attention.

"This one is wobbly." She said as she moved another one.

"Yeah, I'll take care of that real soon."

"Couldn't we have hired a professional?"

Carina smiled at the two before turning back to the flower bed. Just as she was about to plant a flower into the dirt, Sam came out of the house. He held up his car keys, smiling, as he stepped onto the grass.

Ron looked up from the path in frustration. "Ahm, Sam."

"What?"

"I do not like footprints on my grass."

Sam looked behind him, checking the grass that he had just stepped on. "What foot-there's no footprints."

"That's why I built my path." Ron gestured to the stone walkway he had started working on. "So why don't you go from my grass onto my path, okay?"

Sam rolled his eyes as he moved onto the path. "It's family grass, Dad."

"Well, when you own your own grass, you'll understand."

Carina set the flower in the ground and covered its roots with soil before she turned so that she was facing the yard. She watched as Sam walked over to his mother.

"This, this...I can't do it anymore."

"What?" Judy gave him a confused look as she shifted the planter with flowers onto her hip.

"You're putting girl jewelry on a boy dog."

Carina looked over to Mojo's dog house. She tried not to snicker when she saw a bright, neon blue colored collar and harness with bright jewels wrapped around the small dog that she hadn't noticed before.

"He's got enough self-esteem issues as a Chihuahua."

"That's his bling!"

Sam shook his head. "I can't deal with this." He said as he started toward his car.

"Why don't you take Carina with you?" Judy called out to him.

"No!"

"I'm good."

Both Sam and Carina exchanged looks

"I'm going out with Diego later. Besides...I don't do parties." Carina waved Sam on.

"See mom, she doesn't do parties."

"I want you home at eleven o'clock!" Judy exclaimed as Sam climbed into his car.

"Eleven o'clock!" Ron agreed.

"Please for the love of God, drive safely!"

Just as Judy told Sam to drive safely, Sam turned his car on a cloud of black smoke came from the exhaust pipe and floated across the yard. Judy gasped before turning to her husband. "Wow. You are so cheap."

Ron looked to his wife. "Well, it's his first car. It's supposed to be like that."

* * *

"Carina, something came in the mail for you!"

Carina stopped opening the back door and turned back to the kitchen.

"Looks official." Judy smiled as she handed Carina the large white envelope.

Carina flipped it over in her hand and saw the sending address was from Washington DC. "I'll open it when I get to the cafe." She said as she readjusted her backpack on her left shoulder. "I'll be home at 9ish."

"Alright honey, have a good date."

"It's not a date Aunt Judy." Carina replied nervously. "Diego is just a friend."

"A very good looking friend." Judy winked.

"Judy, leave the poor girl alone." Ron said as he moved to the fridge and pulled out a beer. "See you later kiddo." He waved Carina on.

Carina walked to the back door and pushed the screen door open. She crossed the yard, being sure to stay on her uncle's path.

She unlocked her car and slid into the front seat, tossing the envelope into the passenger seat as she started the car.

She buckled her seatbelt as she pulled out of the back driveway of her house. She was able to make it over to Diego's in less than 15 minutes.

As she parked in Diego's driveway, she sent up a silent prayer thanking what god there was the she was lucky enough to live so close to her best friend in the entire universe. It made everything so much more easy for her.

A few moments after she sent the text to Diego, he appeared at his front door. He gave her a small wave as he closed the door behind him. He walked down the path to her car.

"Hey!" He greeted as he opened the passenger door.

He picked up the envelope and sat down.

"What's this?" He asked as he closed the door.

Carina shrugged. "I don't know. It came in the mail."

Diego began tearing opening the top of the envelope.

Carina smirked. "You know opening someone's mail is a felony, right? You could get five years in jail for that."

Diego rolled his eyes as he pulled out a packet of papers. "Like you actually care that I open your mail."

Carina pulled her phone out of her pocket as Diego began reading the papers.

"Woah, Carina!" Diego exclaimed. "This is signed by Buzz Aldrin!"

"What?" Carina said in a confused tone as she took the paperwork from Diego.

She she read the first few sentences of the document, she realized what it was.

Two years prior, when her family was still alive, Carina's father has helped her apply to the most prestigious aerospace summer school in the country. Something that her father said with her pedigree, would be easy to get into.

Turns out he had been right.

He was always right.

"I applied for this program a few years ago, when I was a freshman." Carina explained. "It's for seniors in high school."

"You should do it!" Diego exclaimed. "A summer in DC? Doing what your family has done for generations? That's a once in a lifetime thing!"

Carina stared hard at the letter of acceptance.

"No." She shoved the acceptance letter and the information packet back into the envelope.

Diego gave her a confused look. "But why?" He pointed at the envelope. "Carina, this is one a million, literally. Only 50 high school students were chosen, one from each state and you were chosen from this state."

Carina hesitated a moment before she met Diego's eyes. "I filled this out with my dad." She responded somberly. "A week before the accident, we filled this out and sent it in."

She could see that Diego regretted making a big deal out of it.

"I-I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"It's okay. How could you know? " Carina looked back at the envelope before setting it in the backseat. "Everyone has these...expectations of me. Expectations that I feel like I can't meet anymore."

"What does that mean?"

"I feel...I feel like I'm broken. Like the Carina I was before the accident died and I'm just some stranger trying to take her place."

Diego leaned against the seat as he took in Carina's words.

"Can I be blunt with you?"

Carina nodded. "Of course."

"The Carina you used to be did die." Diego stated. "She died in that car with her parents and her brother. You need to stop trying to be that person, because it's impossible to attain that. You're trying to survive in a world without your family, that's hard enough to do without trying to convince everyone around you that you're okay." He paused. "You'e not okay. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that."

Carina knew that Diego was right.

She was in no way the same girl she use to be.

She use to be a part of the perfect, American dream, family of four living in Arizona.

She use to be a star soccer player with a 4.0 grade point average.

Now she was an orphan.

Struggling with how to put herself back together.

Two years after the accident, she had made good headway.

She moved in with her aunt and uncle after being in a foster home for seven months while they filed the paperwork since her parents didn't have a living will.

She re-enrolled in school at Tranquility High School.

She had been lucky enough to find a friend like Diego, who loved her enough to always give it to her straight.

She was doing better.

But even surrounded by people who loved her, she still felt alone.

She felt something- a darkness- was growing inside of her, being fed by her anxieties and traumas.

"Was that too much?"

Carina was shaken from her thoughts when Diego spoke up.

"I didn't mean to upset you."

Carina shook her head. "No. It wasn't too much." She looked to Diego. "It was just what I needed to hear...I'm not the same person."

"And there's nothing wrong with that." Diego reiterated.

"I know...it's just going to take a while to get use to that."

"It might take the rest of your life."

Carina smiled at him. "As long as I have you, I think I can manage."


	4. Chapter Three

**"I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfill our destiny, but our fate is sealed."**  
 **-Paulo Coelho**  
 *****  
 ******  
 *****

It wasn't until the early hours of the morning that Sideswipe saw that the Witwicky boy, Sam, finally fell asleep.

The girl, Carina, had fallen asleep many hours beforehand after returning home from going out with her friend. Sideswipe had noted that humans her age, much like her male counterpart Sam, were full of energy which caused them to stay up late in the evening as opposed to their older caretakers.

Ever since he had first seen her, Sideswipe could tell that there was something different with the human girl. She carried herself with a wisdom that he didn't think was possible for beings as young as human were. Without very many words, he could tell that she also carried a great sorrow.

Sideswipe had learned that it didn't matter the size or shape of the sentient being, sorrow and pain was something that was universally felt.

And he could see that pain in Carina.

And he recognized it.

Maybe it was from losing his homeworld, or maybe it was because she displayed her emotions so openly without realizing it, but Sideswipe knew the pain she was feeling. She had lost something. Something that was a part of her very being. Something that had changed who she was as a human.

From the bits and pieces of conversation he had picked up, the family she was staying with was not her immediate family. The older humans were the parents of Sam, but not of Carina. Sideswipe thought it strange because Carina resembled them slightly. It wasn't until he looked up human family titles that he realized that Ron, the man she called uncle at the car lot, was the brother of her father.

But it still made him wonder where her own parental figures were.

Several times after Carina had fallen asleep, an accident had been mentioned by the other members of the house. It was an accident that, apparently, Carina was still recovering from. Sideswipe wondered if the accident had to do with the pain he saw in her.

From his place, parked near the shed in the backyard next to Bumblebee, Sideswipe managed to run a scan over Carina as she slept. While she had no injuries that he could see, something peaked his interest. While there was no fresh wounds, she had a residual wound on her right shoulder. He couldn't tell how severe the wound was, but it was clear to him that something had happened. He settled for sending the scan to Ratchet to see what he could make of it.

He did a quick scan online to see if he could find anything out about the accident that had been mentioned. He concluded that he didn't know enough about the family or Carina to find the results that he was hoping for. He settled on listening to the family and seeing if he could hear anything else that might clue him into what happened to the girl.

After awhile, Sideswipe had found himself becoming increasingly invested in the family the more he listened in on their conversations. He had never seen family interaction before, especially _human_ family interaction.

They seemed to all go through the same cycle of self care before returning to their respective areas and resting. Ron and his life companion, Judy, as Sideswipe found out, fell asleep fairly quickly. Sam, although, didn't fall asleep until many, many hours after Carina, Ron and Judy had fallen asleep.

Sideswipe watched as Sam moved around his area of the house doing various things. He appeared to be reading and on his computer for an extended period of time. Sideswipe grew board of watching Sam and decided to spend some time in his own recharge cycle like Bumblebee had decided to do hours prior.

Sideswipe wasn't sure how long he had been in recharge before he was jolted awake by one of his scanners' alarm sounding.

There was movement inside of the house, but when Sideswipe went to ask Bumblebee what was going on, he found that the young mech had started his engine, no doubt alerting someone inside the house.

* * *

Carina!"

Sam's voice jolted Carina from her nightmare. "I'm awake." She muttered. "I'm awake."

She sat up from where she was laying on her stomach. It was then that she realized that she was still fully dressed in the clothes she had been wearing when she got home from dinner with Diego.

"Carina!" Sam yelled again as her bedroom door slammed opened. "Someone's stealing my car!"

"What?" Carina mumbled in a groggy voice as Sam quickly searched her desk and pulled her keys out from under several notebooks.

"I need to borrow your car!"

Carina rubbed the haze of sleep from her eyes as she sat up. It took her a minute to fully realize what Sam has told her and when she did, she scrambled out of the bed, getting caught in the tangle of sheets and almost falling on her face. "Sam, wait!"

She managed to untangle herself and run after Sam, catching up to him as he hit the top of the staircase.

"Dad, call the the cops!" Sam yelled as he ran down the stairs, jumping two steps at a time.

Carina followed after him, scooping up her shoes by the front door as she went. Sam made it to Carina's car, unlocking the door and throwing himself inside. Carina barely had enough time to get in the passenger seat before Sam pulled out of the back driveway.

"What are we doing?" Carina asked as pulled her shoes on and tied them. "You realize that this is literally insane, right?"

Sam ignore her as he pulled his cellphone out of his pocket, almost dropping it on the floorboard. He flipped it open and Carina watched as he dialed 911.

"Hello? 911 emergency? My car's been stolen! I'm in pursuit!"

Carina watched as the person driving Sam's car took a sharp left turn. Sam took the same sharp turn, making Carina's heart drop. She placed her hand on the dash board as she slipped her seatbelt on. She felt like she was going to be sick.

"I need all units, the whole squadron! Bring everyone!

"Sam, slow down." Carina warned.

"No no no no. Don't ask me question, alright? My father's the head of the neighborhood watch!"

Carina reached over and grabbed Sam's phone. She closed the flip phone, ending the call. "Focus on what you're doing before you get us both killed!"

"Carina-"

"Drive, Sam!"

Sam kept taking sharp turns as they followed after the car, making Carina regret getting in the car with Sam when she should have been at home sleeping.

Soon the driver turned into a construction yard and was blocked by a chain link fence, Carina was sure that they had whoever it was, but the driver of Sam's drive slammed on the brakes, but quickly hit the gas peddle again. They slammed into the locked chain-link fence gate and sped over the train tracks right before a train passed by, effectively cutting Sam and Carina off.

Sam swore as he slammed down on the wheel.

"Hey!" Carina looked at him. "Be nice."

"Carina, stay here." Sam ordered before he climbed out of the car.

"What?" Carina unbuckled her seatbelt and opened the door of the car, but stay half in the vehicle. "What exactly is your plan here, Sam?" She shouted at him as she leaned against the door.

"To get my car back!" He shouted back as he approached the train.

"That's not a plan, that's a hope!"

Sam ignored her and jumped between two train cars.

Carina let out an audible sigh of discontent. She couldn't let Sam just run off and try to face a car thief by himself. Carina at least had several self-defense classes under her belt, but that wouldn't do Sam any good if she wasn't there. But Sam told her to stay put, and if anything happened to Sam, she would need to be the one to call for help.

Carina's choice was suddenly made for her when a bright white light erupted from the construction site behind the train track. The light pierced through the clouds and lit up the whole area, displaying a strange symbol in the sky.

"Sam!'

Carina pulled herself out of the car and slammed the door shut as she ran toward where she had last seen her cousin.

What was going on? What was that strange symbol?

There was a nagging feeling in the back of her mind telling her to stay with the car. Some part of her knew that she would be safe if she had just listened to Sam, but she wasn't going to lose anymore family members

if she could help it.

"Sam-"

Before Carina could finish calling out for her cousin, something grabbed her and forced her to the ground. Carina quickly recovered and shoved the person off of her. "Get the hell off-"

"Shh! Carina it's me!"

"Sam?" Carina sat up. "What's going on?"

"Look!" Sam half shouted, half whispered as he pointed directly in front of them.

Carina's eyes followed Sam's finger and she felt her heart skip a beat.

Projecting the light into the sky was a tall, robot-like being. Even from a distance, Carina could tell that being was extremely tall, probably being a few stories tall. "Wh-What is that?"

"That's my car!"

A bright light scanned over the area, making Carina and Sam duck down behind the stack of materials and garbage they were hiding behind.

Carina peaked over the top once the light was gone. "So your car is...alive?"

Sam didn't answer her as he grabbed the hem of Carina's jacket, pulling his phone out from where she had put it after hanging up on 911.

"My name is Sam Witwicky." Sam said as he began recording himself from his phone ."This is my cousin Carina. Whoever finds this, my car is alive."

Sam pointed his phone's camera over Carina's shoulder, filming the giant machine.

"This is my last words." Sam continued as he pointed the phone back at himself. "I just wanna say mom, dad, I love you and if you find Busty Beauties under my bed, it wasn't mine. I'm holding it for Miles."

He sighed. "No, no. Wait. That's not true. It's mine and uncle Charles gave it to me. I'm sorry...Mojo, I love you."

When Sam closed his phone and turned back to the construction site, he was met with Carina's judgmental gaze.

"What?"

"You think we're going to die and the last words to your parents are about your porn magazines?"

"Shut up." Sam grabbed her hand. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

"To see if we can get a better look."

"You want to get closer to the giant, living car?"

Before Sam could respond, a low growl interrupted him.

Both teenagers froze where they were standing.

"What was that?"

Carina turned just as two dogs began barking and charging at them. "Dogs! Run!"

Sam let go of Carina's hand as the two began scrambling away.

Sam veered left, but Carina stayed to the right. She managed to hoisted herself up and over a structure, but she accidentally slammed her shoulder against a 4x4 that she hadn't been able to see in the dark.

She let out a yelp of pain as she fell into the dirt. Pain shot up her arm but she didn't have time to to be concerned with her arm as she heard one of the dogs scaling the structure with one jump.

With her good hand holding her throbbing shoulder, Carina weaved in-between metal support beams that had been set in cement. She could hear the dogs was still close behind her. She needed to get somewhere higher off the ground where she the doge couldn't reach her.

Just ahead of her, Carina could see there was a temporary scaffolding structure with a small platform a few feet up, seemingly out of reach for the dogs. Using the last of her remaining stamina, Carina pushed forward, vaulting herself up onto a small wooden platform.

She caught her breathe as she turned to looked down. The dog was snarling at her, it's sharp teeth flashing in the dim light.

Carina tried to catch her breath as she held her now throbbing shoulder.

What was she suppose to do now?

The best she could do was hope that the guard dog would lose interest in her and wander away far enough that he wouldn't be able to hear her as she made her way back to her car. But something was telling her that she would be waiting a long time for that.

Carina sat back, trying to think of what she could do.

She didn't have her phone on her and Sam had his with him. She hoped that Sam managed to get away from the dog that was chasing him, but she was too far way to know for sure what happened to him.

After what seemed like only a few minutes of sitting just out of reach of the guard dog, the roar of an engine made the dog snap it's head in the opposite direction. It sniffed that air briefly before letting out a low growl and dashing in the direction the car engine had come from.

Carina watched as the dog disappeared into the shadows. She waited a few long, tense minutes before she climbed off the platform. Looking around the area, she knew that she was lost.

She slowly backtracked the way she thought she came from, but in the panic of her running away from the dogs, she hadn't thought to look at where she was fleeing to. She moved around the construction equipment.

"Sam?" She called out in a low voice.

She could no longer hear barking and growling from the dogs or the sound of the car engine she had heard moments before. She stumbled through the yard until she came to a part she recognized.

She kept walking and soon, she came across her car, still parked in the same place that she left it. She crossed over the train tracks as another wave of pain washed over her from her shoulder. Carina stopped in front of her car, holding her shoulder.

She had just watched Sam's car stand up on its own.

She got her car from the same dealership at the same time Sam did. Was it possible that her car was like Sam's?

Was her car alive too?

Carina slowly walked around her car. She wasn't sure what she was looking for, she was hoping that there would be an obvious sign that there was something different about her car, but nothing jumped out at her. It looked like any normal Thunderbird would look.

She moved to the driver's door and sat in the driver's seat, leaving her legs swung over the side of the seat so she could jump out if she needed to. She looked around the inside of her car, but didn't seen anything that jumped out at her.

Maybe her car was just a normal car and she was just overreacting.

Her priority was finding Sam. They needed to get out there.

Carina stood from the driver's seat, but before she could close the door, red and blue lights bathed the area around her in a strobing effect.

Carina let out a long frustrated sigh as a police car pulled in behind her, blocking her car in. It was the icing on the cake. Could her night get any worse?

Two officers opened their doors of the police cruisers. "Hands behind your head!" The driver shouted at her.

Carina followed their instruction and clasped her hands together, wincing as she moved her shoulder.

"Turn around with your back towards us and walk backwards toward us!"

Carina felt her heart hammering in her chest as she followed the officer's orders. Before she could blink, she had her arms pinned behind her as handcuffs were locked around her wrists.

Carina was beginning to wish that she had just stayed in bed.

* * *

 **N/A: Sorry for the late chapter, just got back from trip to Washington DC to see some family. I try to keep updates frequent, but sometimes things happen, you know?**


	5. Chapter Four

**"In every conceivable manner, our family is the link to our past and the bridge to our future."**

 **-Alex Haley**

* * *

"I can't be any clearer on how crystal clear I am being...It just stood up."

"It just stood up." The detective repeated.

Carina felt like bashing her had against the desk as Sam tried to explain what he had already explained to the police for what seemed like the millionth time.

"Wow. That's really neat." The detective turned and retrieved two cups before handing them to both Carina and Sam. "Time to fill 'em up."

Carina looked at the cup before looking back to the detective. "You think we're on drugs?"

"What are you rollin'?" He asked her. "Whippets? Goofballs? A little wowie sauce with the boy toys?"

"Excuse me?" Carina said in a low tone.

"We're not on drugs." Sam rolled his eyes.

"Then what's this?" The detective tossed a bottle that Carina recognized in the air and caught it. "Found it in your pocket...Mojo." He read off the container. "Is that what the kids are doing now? A little bit of Mojo?"

"Those are our dog's pain pills."

"It's a chihuahua." Ron offered.

The detective sighed.

He leaned back slightly and rubbed his eyes. When he did so, the hem of his leather jacket fell back, revealing his holstered service weapon.

He smiled when both Sam and Carina looked at it. "What was that?"

"Hm?" Sam looked back at him.

"You eyeballing my piece, fifty cent?"

Sam didn't reply.

"You wanna go?" The detective got closer to Sam, close withing kissing distance. "Make something happen. Do it...because I promise you I will bust you up."

"Are you actually going to charge us with anything?" Carina interrupted. "Or are you going to continued to make veiled, slightly racist threats to minors?"

"Carina-"

Ron tried to stop his niece, but even he knew that once Carina was angry enough, there was no filtering her words.

"You challenging me, little girl?"

The detective got moved so that he was right in front of Carina's face. Carina tried not make a disgusted face due to the man's breath.

"Because if you're challenging me, I will not hesitate to have you charged with resisting arrest."

Carina gave him a puzzled look. "Do you even know how the justice system works? You just brought us in for questioning. You haven't actually charged us or arrested us yet."

"That can't be proven."

"Are you on drugs?"

"Alright, enough." Ron stepped in. "Are you charging my kids or not?"

The detective with blonde hair was looking at his partner with a concerned look. "No, Mr. Witwicky. We just need you to fill out some paperwork to release her car into your custody and then you can go." He looked at his partner. "Dwight, step away from the kids."

After what seemed like an eternity; Sam, Carina and Ron were able to leave the police station. Carina and Sam got into the Thunderbird as Ron got into his own car.

"Are we going to talk about what happened?" Sam turned to his cousin.

Carina turned on the car and pulled the seatbelt across her body, wincing as she moved her shoulder. "I'm still not entirely convinced I didn't hallucinate last night."

"Samuel, what were you thinking?" Judy exclaimed as she guided Carina to a barstool. "You and Carina could have been seriously hurt!"

Carina sat on the barstool as he aunt pulled her jacket off her shoulders and moved her shirt to see Carina's shoulder. "It's wasn't his fault, aunt Judy. I was the one who went with him."

"Neither one of you should have gone chasing after some lunatic car thief." Ron turned to Sam. "And we're going to have a conversation about lying to the police when you get home from school young man."

"Oh, sweetie, this is already bruising." Judy turned to her husband. "Ron, I don't think she should go to school, this is going to be hurting her all day."

Carina quickly jumped off the barstool."I'm fine!" She smiled. "I can go to school...and besides, I have my genealogy report to give today."

"But that's your bad shoulder." Judy said "I don't feel comfortable sending you to school."

"My report is more than half my grade." Carina replied. "I can stick it out for the day."

Judy and Ron looked at each other. "History is your last class."

Carina nodded.

"You can go to that class and give your report." Ron said. "But I want you to come straight home and ice your shoulder. We don't want your injury getting worse than it already is."

"Alright." Carina nodded.

"What about me?" Sam looked to his parents.

Ron sighed. "Fine. You can have the day off to, but if Carina is going to history class, that means you're going to."

Sam groaned as Carina moved to the freezer and pulled out an icepack. She waved to her aunt and uncle as she moved toward the stairs to go to her bedroom.

She was glad her aunt insisted on her staying at home. She was so tired she felt like she had a fog cloud settled over her mind that prevented her from having full, concrete thoughts. She struggled to keep her eyes open all through the police questioning.

She climbed up the stairs and made it to her bedroom. She tossed her keys on her desk as she closed the door. She didn't bother changing her clothes as she climbed into bed and laid on the ice pack.

It was as soon as her eyes closed that she was thrown into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

"Carina, come on it's time for us to go if we're going to make it to class on time."

Carina groaned as Sam shook her awake.

"Come on Car, I'll drive. Just get dressed."

"Alright, I'm up."

Carina sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. Her shoulder still throbbed with pain, but it felt better than it had earlier. Carina moved to her closet an pulled out a fresh pair of jeans and a shirt. She knew she didn't have time to take a shower, but that didn't mean that she had to go to school looking like a train wreck.

She quickly got changed and ran a brush through her now knotted hair before she picked up her backpack from her desk chair before leaving her room.

She waved goodbye to her aunt who was working in the garden as she made her way to her car. Sam was already in the driver's seat with the engine running.

She tossed her backpack in the backseat as she climbed into the passenger seat.

"How's the shoulder doing?" Sam asked as he put the car into reverse.

"Sore and stiff." Carina replied. "But it's doing better."

"So...are we going to ever talk about last night?"

"The police thinks we're on drugs and your parents thinks we were lying. Maybe we should just drop it while we're ahead. It's possible we didn't see what we thought we saw."

Sam gave his cousin a confused look. "You know what we saw. We watched my car...come alive." Sam looked down at the steering wheel. "How do we know that your car isn't the same way?"

"I think we would know by now." Carina said. "Let's just forget about it for both our sake's, yeah?"

"Man, you're grouchy."

"Yeah, I tend to get that way when I don't get a whole lot of sleep."

Sam let her words hang out in the open air for a moment. "Thank you."

"Thank you for what?"

"For following me." Sam said. "For having my back. You didn't have to that."

Carina sighed. "Yeah, I did. You're my family. I've always got your back."

"The same goes for me." Sam smiled. "I've got your back, like Iceman and Maverick."

Carina looked at him. "Iceman and Maverick? Like from Top Gun?" She smiled. "When did you finally watch that movie?"

"I watched it with Miles the last time I was at his house."

"So which one am an I and which one are you?"

"You're obviously Maverick." Sam said. "I don't even know how that's the question."

"Why is that not a question?"

"Because you're exactly like Tom Cruise in that movie."

"I don't think so."

Sam laughed. "Of course you're not." He said sarcastically as he pulled into the high school parking lot. "But the point is, I've got your back."

Carina looked at him as he pulled into a parking spot. "Thank you." She said sincerely. "I'm glad to know that someone's on my side."

Carina collected her backpack as she climbed out of her car, locking the door in the process. Sam tossed her the keys as he too climbed out of the car.

The parking lot was mostly deserted except for a few other students who were making their way to whatever sport they had for their final period. She still felt exhausted even after sleeping almost the whole afternoon away, she was ready to be back at home and in her bed.

* * *

"For my genealogy report, I decided to it on a member of my mother's side of the family." Carina began. "While my father's side of the family is known for their exploration of our planet's oceans, my mother's side of the family was focused more on what laid beyond our small, blue marble."

Carina cleared her throat before she continued. She pressed the next button on her laptop, making the slide on the projector change to a black and white picture of a man dressed in a suit.

"My great grandfather on my mother's side, Emil Lainez, was also well known in the scientific community. In the early 20th century, my grandfather was one to the first men to publish scholarly articles about the theory that there was sentient live beyond our world. It was his belief that in the infinite universe that we lived in, it was theoretically impossible for human kind to be the only creatures capable of higher thought and feeling."

Carina changed the slide to a picture of a family.

"My grandfather Emil and his siblings were all involved with an astronomical science. While my grandfather studied astronomy as a whole, his brother Andre studied theoretical astronomy and all of it subfields, and his sister Maria studied optical astronomy. It was their love of the stars that defined my family's morals and traditions. It was also their generation that began the tradition of naming their kids after stars, a tradition that sparked the inspiration for my own name."

Carina clicked on the next slide, which was a picture of the first article that he grandfather ever published.

"In 1934, my grandfather published his first article. In part, in contained many equations and theories about life beyond our world, but at the time NASA hadn't been established and the field of astronomy was a science that was primarily built around hypothesis, which result in articles like my grandfather's being consider false science."

She clicked again the next button.

"It was because of this relenting criticism from the scientific community, that my grandfather sought to prove them wrong. Where he started was with an idea that had began in 1923...a space telescope, the likes of which would later inspire the creation on the Hubble Space Telescope. My grandfather fashioned a small scope as a rudimentary, small scale version of what he hoped to create one day. He envisioned, once the science of the star became more prominent, there would exist a telescope on earth that could see millions of light years away. His designs were one of the first to be used in observatory telescopes."

She changed the slide to a picture of two observatories.

"The Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii and the W.M Keck Observatory in Waimea, Hawaii are the most well known observatories to still use my grandfather's basic designs and theories in their research. It is with his articles and other sources that they are able to triangulate their telescope to certain areas of space, looking for planets whose atmosphere resembles our own."

She clicked to the last slide.

"My grandfather died when he was 75 due to an illness that was later thought to be tuberculosis. He did live to see NASA founded, and he was named of the fathers of astronomy in 2000 and is known to be one of the first Hispanic men to become a material part of a scientific research study that has existed in more than one century." Carina paused. "When he died, he left behind four kids: two sons and two daughters."

Carina turned to Mr. Hosney to signal that she was done.

"What does your name mean, Carina?" He asked.

"Carina is Latin for ship keel." She said. "But I was named after the constellation Carina, which was part of a larger constellation called the Argo Navis, the ship of Jason and the Argonauts in Greek mythology."

Mr. Hosney nodded. "Good job." He turned to the rest of the class. "Alright, who's next?"

Carina unplugged her laptop from the projector and closed it as she walked to her seat in the back of the class.

She hated public speaking.

While she was decent at it and could hold her own when it came to talking in front of crowds, the nauseous feeling of being in front of an audience always flared up when she knew she had to do a report or anything resembling standing up in front of others.

Carina scribbled on the corner of her notebook as the next student walked up the the front of the class room to present.

She didn't pay much attention to the next few students and their presentations. Her mind kept wandering back to the previous night. What had her and Sam seen? Was it really Sam's car that they saw? She kept going over the evening's events in her head, trying to come up with any other explanation to justify what they had seen, but couldn't come up with anything.

If what they saw really was Sam's car, what would that mean for them?

What was going to happen next?


End file.
